Vipaasana

       Evolving the defence strategy of any country depending on the changing geopolitical circumstances becomes crucial to remain sovereign in this multipolar highly globalised world.      India has the distinction of rising as one of the major global power in defence sector in quite a short time. The US which was supporting Pakistan in 1970's and who despised India and imposed sanctions when we became nuclear was quick to change its side after the 9/11 attack. Since then trade and defence ties with the US has been on an upsurge.      4 major US agreements bring any country closer to the US in terms of defence and cooperation. The General Security of Military Information agreement(GSOMIA) allows the militaries to share the intelligence gathered. Logistics exchange memorandum of agreement(LEMOA) which allows access to designated military facilities for refuelling and replenishment. Communication and information Security memorandum of agr...

     West Asia has remained a bone of contention for quite a long time now. Conflicts in this region can have a global spillover if not contained. It becomes important for any country to have a global interest in peace for securing its own future.      Afghanistan has a geo strategic location in West Asia and is an oil producing State. For India, Afghanistan acts as a crucial link to Central Asian Republics and to counterbalance the influence of Pakistan and China in the region. The recent US-Taliban deal has left out India as a stakeholder and mainly concentrates on the western interests. The US is desperate to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan which was deployed after the 9/11 attacks. The deployment of troops has been widely resented by the US public. The US has ignored the civilian government and has made an agreement with the Taliban to withdraw its troops provided that the Taliban does not allow the Afghan soil to be used for terrorism activities m...

       Air pollution has become one of the serious concerns around the globe. In India, Delhi has been annually experiencing severe air pollution every winter threatening the health of its residents. The issue should be taken seriously as over a period of time, it becomes a matter of life and death.      There are many causes for pollution in the NCR region. The burning of stubble in Punjab and Haryana will send particulate matter towards the NCR. The vehicular emissions especially from diesel vehicles and unregulated construction activities add a lot of particulate matter to the air. Usage of conventional forms of cooking and garbage burning will also contribute its share.     T here is smog formation in the atmosphere during winter. When there is inversion of temperature, smog accumulates in the lower troposphere. The wind around the NCR during winter is very still and this leads to the stagnation of the accumulated pollution in the troposp...

       Pakistan has been acknowledged internationally as a hotspot of terror financing since it was put under the grey list of Financial action was force(FATF) in 2018. This was a major blow to Pakistan's international reputation.      FATF is an intergovernmental organisation formed in 1989, headquartered in Paris, which monitored and sanctioned money laundering. But since 9/11, the mandate of FATF has expanded to include tackling of terrorist financing. There is empirical evidence that money laundering is associated with organised crime. The Golden crescent is a region in Asia which includes Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran popular for illicit drug production. The illegal money is then laundered to finance terrorism activities around the globe.      Countries that are considered as a safe haven to money laundering and terror financing are kept under the grey list. When a country is put under grey list, directives are given by FATF to tho...

       In the world of diplomacy, there are no permanent friends or foes. The relationship between each country and the world keeps on evolving with the hard and soft power exhibited by the countries over a period of time.      Quad is an informal grouping of 4 countries including India, Australia, US and Japan. It was formed basically to protect geo-strategic interests and the freedom of navigation in international waters in general and Indo-pacific in particular. The growing expansion of China through its "Belt and road initiative" and "The string of Pearls" has been seen in suspicion and as a threat to the freedom of navigation.      Malabar exercise is an annual naval exercise between India, US and the Japan. Till recently, India was reluctant to include Australia in this exercise as this would amount to a formal military grouping of the informal Quad. India was cautious not to give China, its neighbour, to see it as an active partic...

       Caste has been  discriminating people for various reasons since the later Vedic period. Originally one caste was attributed to a particular community based on their occupations which were then further subdivided into a number of jaatis.      Each jaati came to be associated with a particular occupation. This was also the time when the codification of Dharmasutras and Dharmashastras began and the upper caste began dominating over the lower caste to keep the latter in subservience. The process of discrimination has continued till this day.      The ace bowler, Muttaiah Muralidharan belongs to one such family of a caste considered to be inferior which migrated to Srilanka during the colonial rule to work in tea plantations as indentured labourers. These Tamil speaking people were termed as the hill people. The Srilankan Tamilians living in Northern and Eastern parts of Srilanka considered the hill Tamilians in Central Srilanka t...

     With time, any country changes its political, economic, cultural, social and ethical outlook. The change in economy experienced in India is different from the rest of the world. The transition has been quite unpredictable creating discrepancies in employment and growth.      As a young independent nation, we started out as a mixed economy tilted towards socialism. One reason to adopt this kind of strategy was to protect the nascent domestic industries from powerful foreign competition and to become self reliant. The other being that the Indian industries at that time were not well diversified and had only a few industries in cotton, jute and iron and steel industry.      Usually, a country progresses from underdeveloped to developing to developed in stages. Initially the primary sector involving the agricultural and allied activities would contribute to the majority of the GDP(simply growth). As the growth happens, the share of agricultu...

       The basic duty of any State is to ensure food security to its citizens. But as time has evolved, so has the functions of the State. As more disinvestment and privatisation happens, the government must cater to a quality social welfare while other fields are left to the the market forces.      In the early years after independence, there was acute food shortage and we were termed as ship to mouth nation by the Unites States from whom we were receiving food grains under PL-480 scheme against rupee payments. But US had its own agenda of arm twisting and using this as a political tactic. In mid 1960's we achieved food security and started exporting because of the Green revolution.      Green revolution involved the use of High yield variety which was imported from Mexico along with chemical fertilisers, pesticides, agricultural machinery and irrigation. The benefits of the green revolution in the first phase were accrued by richer sta...

       Technology has grown to an extent where we can replace any part of a gene and manipulate the overall characteristics of an individual. It can be used to treat many diseases which are inherited from previous generations. But are we affecting the nature's order by manipulating the gene?      DeoxyRibose Nucleic Acid(DNA) are carriers of hereditary. They carry the traits of our ancestors and are a proof of human evolution. The whole DNA is made up of amino acids which combines in a specific combination with hydrogen bonds. Adenosine combines with Thiamine and Guanine combines with Cytosine. A part of the DNA forms a gene. CRISPER technology using CAS9 enzyme is the latest tool which can be used as a molecular scissor. The unwanted part of the gene is first identified using the RNA sequence and then it is replaced with a new desirable sequence.      This is a great breakthrough in Genome research. With this, there is a possibility of ...

      Today, we are living in a highly commercial world. The multinational companies and the corporates are indirectly ruling this world. Revenues of some of the corporates are more than that of some of the country’s budget. They have created a sustainable system to generate revenue and expand tirelessly with the profits that they earn.     It all began with Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation(LPG) where the governments liberalised and privatised their economy ultimately integrating them into the globe. The LPG ushered in a new world order where the multinational corporates started emerging with profit as their main motive and this increase in wealth has had a trickle down effect in improving the quality of life of the lowest rungs of people. Many people who were hitherto vulnerable have been able to afford a descent lifestyle because of the  reduction in the price and improve in quality of products/services due to competition. ...

       In any modern day democracy whichever political ideology it follows, knowing is the basic right. The Right to Information Act(RTI), 2005 was one such law which gave the people "The right to know". It was a landmark law to truly empower the people to question.      The Supreme Court held that "The right to know" is a fundamental right which comes under the precinct of Article 19(1) of the constitution under Freedom of speech and expression. The RTI act was basically validated by the Supreme Court as constitutional and essential. It recognised the right to free speech and expression as a holistic right not to be read literally and of course with reasonable restrictions.      The RTI act has been used over the years by the public and even the poorest of the poor to extract information from various government departments. It was also used to act as a deterrent to corruption by unearthing some of the huge scams like the 2G scam. It was...

       To say that we belong to a particular race, pure blooded or a pure Hindu culture is nothing but a blatant violation of truth. The intermixing is so complex that we are unable to draw boundaries of what constitutes a pure culture.      Before people began settled cultivation, they were nomads migrating from place to place either in search of food or water or shelter or to hunt animals or to protect themselves from being hunted or to escape harsh weather conditions or simply for the sake of exploring! Along with this movement people carried with them their ideas, culture, values, beliefs about God, materials and ways of communication. There is no necessity that all these would have been completely accepted or completely rejected. Some would have been rejected and some would have been accepted and integrated into the local culture.      During this long process of migration, the lines of purity of any culture were severely blurred. P...

     Most of us have the general notion that gossiping is what women do and have a negative feeling against it.  Women who gossip are looked down in the society as not being subtle. But have you asked yourself whether men gossip or not? If yes, then why this social stigma towards it?      Historically gossiping has been a part of human evolution. In fact it is one of the factors that has contributed for the human evolution. Before we could develop proper channels of communication, majorly gossiping was used to share ideas and thoughts. It has been in existence from a long time in one form or the other right from the hunting and gathering community to the modern day society. Gossiping gave humans an opportunity to develop ample communication skills. When we compare the communication skills of humans and animals, we will be amazed by our detailing. Even animals communicate, but with lesser detail. An animal can make a particular sound for a particular da...

       The pandemic has given us a rare opportunity to reset our ties with the environment and the ways in which governments work. There is a need to revive the economy in a fundamentally different manner so as to cater the fruits of development to a majority of the people.     Yes, the government needs to take some fiscal action, but not by giving complete freedom to the employers. Presently the government must first ensure the job security of those who are employed to prevent further loss of employment. The government can give some freedom to the private sector in terms of tax payment and minimum basic regulation depending on the number of people employed and the importance of the organisation. The private sector has made huge profits in the recent decade because of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation. Treating the employees with dignity is the minimum basic requirement to show at-least some gratitude.       In the process ...

       Governments are institutions in a country which are supposed to protect the people and work for their welfare. If the same government has no respect for the established laws and procedures, then what is even the purpose of making laws?      The recent incident of a gang rape case against the Hathras in UP shows the government's lack of respect towards its people. It shows the bias in terms of caste, class and position. Now let us question what would have happened if the women had belonged to a upper caste Hindu family and is economically well off? Would the same sequence of events been followed?      The fact that the family was not informed about the cremation of the body shows the high handedness of the police in selectively dealing with cases. It clearly shows intent to disrupt the justice system. An open transparent post mortem would have exposed the truth. But the truth was not allowed a fair opportunity to express itself. Th...

       One of the reasons for humans to survive and thrive longer is because of our ability to communicate, co-ordinate and work as a collective whole. Multilateralism is one such tool which came to the broad-light after the Second world war. It is not to say that multilateralism was non existent before. It indeed existed in a limited way, but the scope and horizons of multilateralism expanded when the United Nations Organisations (UNO) was created.      After the war, an intense cold war started on the superiority of the form of governance and over a period of time almost all countries came to have a mixed economy with regional variations. Along with UNO, we began to have a number of international institutions like the World Bank, World Trade Organisation (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Health Organisation (WHO), International Seabed Authority (ISA) and many more. The purpose of all these organisations was to integrate the the world in...